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Kiwi Catholic opinion on global news and eventsSun, 15 Mar 2015 00:59:47 +0000en-UShourly1Political pet peevehttp://catholicsoapbox.com/political-pet-peeve/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/political-pet-peeve/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 00:59:47 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1993Continue reading →]]>If you’re a political junkie like me, living in a country like Australia, with its multiple tiers of government, is a beautiful thing. In New Zealand, there’s the general election every three years and the boredom of local body politics, but nothing like the rhythm of federal elections with state and territory elections scattered throughout the federal cycle. It is heaven. The US was even more intoxicating.

But sometimes, it can be political observer hell. Or a cause of great frustration, at the very least.

The next highlight on the Australian electoral calendar is the New South Wales state election. For those from other parts of the world, New South Wales is Australia’s most populous state, with Sydney as its capital and the home to the vast majority of New South Wales’s voters.

Because of political fallout for the former leader of the Labor Party, the current Opposition, in the wake of the Sydney cafe siege last December (he had long before written a letter of support for the man who took hostages), Luke Foley has emerged as a fresh face to take on the popular premier Mike Baird. The election is just two weeks away, but after just 10 weeks or so in the job, Luke Foley is still being introduced to large numbers of voters.

Mr Foley says his mum Helen instilled in him as a child faith in three institutions: the Labor Party, the Catholic Church and the Eastern Suburbs Rugby League football club.

His father left the family home when Mr Foley and his twin sister were seven years old. They haven’t seen him since.

“Mum gave us a terrific upbringing,” he told AAP.

“She sacrificed a bit, as single parents tend to do, but we didn’t want for anything.

“It was a good old fashioned Catholic upbringing.”

So how does that “old-fashioned Catholic upbringing” express itself?

But Mr Foley insists his faith is private and not something we’ll hear too much during the campaign.

“I don’t seek to make a song and dance about it and I’d never seek to impose it on anyone,” he said.

And welcome to my chief political pet peeve: Politicians who ignore their personal convictions.

This phenomenon has a long history and while it may predate the 1960 US presidential election, this is when it came to the fore. As John F. Kennedy emerged as the frontrunner and eventual Democratic nominee for that election, a much more sectarian world than the one we now live in was concerned. If Kennedy, a Catholic, was to win the presidency, would that mean that Rome, i.e. the Pope, was making political decisions for the United States?

Kennedy was forced to calm down the electorate by assuring them that they wouldn’t have to worry about such an eventuality. He would be making his own decisions rather than worrying what the Pope thought of things. As we know 55 years later, JFK’s life and behaviour demonstrated that he didn’t listen too closely to papal or Catholic teaching.

And so, the precedent was set. Most Catholic politicians — certainly more so than some of our evangelical brethren — have made similar assurances that their personal faith and personal view on matters shouldn’t concern people because it won’t influence how they legislate.

As a voter, albeit not in the upcoming NSW election, I want my politicians to votes based on their personal convictions and principles. And if their Catholic faith — or Hindu or Baptist or Rastafarian faith — is what shapes them as a person, that’s what I want them to rely upon when making political decisions.

I don’t want people to live a double life in which they check their religious beliefs at the doors of Parliament and let some other influence — most often their party overlords — dictate how they conduct their voting. My faith, still a serious work in progress, is something that I seek to have infuse everything that I do, from my work to my personal behaviour to the way I conduct my friendships and relationships.

I would love to see a politician state clearly when running for election or re-election that “I am Catholic (or Hindu or Baptist or Rastafarian) and therefore I believe in certain principles. I believe that we have a duty to reduce gross inequality in society. I believe we have a duty to protect God’s creation. I believe in justice, but I also believe in mercy. I believe in the sanctity of human life.”

Part of the problem is that parties have become so entrenched in their view of certain policies that a Catholic who stated such views could not find a political party that would allow them to hold those views simultaneously. One would almost be trying to blend the environmental views of the Greens, the economic policies of Labor and the social conservatism of the Liberal/National parties. Especially where there are fine balances of power, such divergent views would scare party hierarchies.

So be it. Stand as an independent. Articulate your worldview and what has shaped that worldview and see if that honesty and openness will attract voters who are becoming increasingly disenfranchised by political establishments that treats voters like suckers for most of a political term then come calling for votes every three (or four) years.

You wouldn’t see a member of the Greens for whom environmental protection is their “religion” say that they’ll suppress that part of them as a legislator. Similarly, someone who has been so shaped by the union movement that it has become their “Gospel” won’t relinquish that in Parliament.

Catholics, though, and Luke Foley is just the latest, seem to feel its necessary to set aside their influence, all the while trying to attract Catholic voters.

Of course, some Catholic politicians or political aspirants actually don’t agree with the Church on many issues, anyway. But that’s a blog for another day.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/political-pet-peeve/feed/0“We can no longer watch from the sidelines”http://catholicsoapbox.com/we-can-no-longer-watch-from-the-sidelines/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/we-can-no-longer-watch-from-the-sidelines/#commentsThu, 26 Feb 2015 10:06:28 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1991Continue reading →]]>It’s not unusual for me and other Catholic bloggers in New Zealand to lament the choices the country’s Catholic bishops make when deciding whether or not to weigh into public debate. Some trivial issues are sometimes commented on while other seemingly important issues are “allowed to go through to the wicketkeeper”, to use a timely sporting analogy during the Cricket World Cup.

Well, it’s another sporting analogy that has earned the Kiwi bishops a massive thumbs up from me — and a surprising one at that.

Earlier this week, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced that some of the country’s finest military personnel would be heading to the Middle East to help train those battling ISIS/IS/ISIL/Islamic State. It was no doubt a difficult decision to make, and one that he agonised over for some time. In fact, he’d previously made statements suggesting that such a deployment would not happen.

In a rare and remarkable display of prime ministerial anger, National (conservative) leader Mr Key yelled about what he considered the cowardice of other political parties — and especially the opposition Labour party and its leader — in not supporting action again Islamic State by New Zealanders. He said the obstinance was due to wanting to be contrarian in their politics, saying a Labour prime minister would have made the same decision to send troops to Iraq.

In his final flurry, he urged other politicians to “Get some guts and join the right side”.

In recent years, and almost always with justification, the New Zealand bishops have usually found themselves allied with the more progressive parties in politics on issues like poverty, inequality, welfare support, climate change, justice and a range of other topics.

Like the Republicans in the US, the Conservatives in the UK and the Coalition in Australia, the National Party in New Zealand can be portrayed — often accurately — as the party that’s on the side of business rather than on the side of the workers and those living in hardship. The Catholic Church’s social teaching and its preferential option for the poor makes it easy to oppose policies that favour middle class and upper class voters. And the social issues that conservative parties used to find agreement with bishops on are becoming fewer and farther between.

This week, though, it didn’t take long for the New Zealand bishops to swing in behind John Key and National, which you could argue was them swinging in behind Pope Francis and swinging in behind Christians in the Middle East especially, but all innocent people in that perennially troubled region.

Here’s the full statement from the bishops:

New Zealand can no longer watch from the sidelines as the Islamic State continues to inflict immense suffering and brutality on the people of Iraq. They must not be left to face such unjust aggression on their own, say the New Zealand Catholic Bishops.

“Pope Francis has said that it is “licit to stop an unjust aggressor”. If by providing training to the Iraqi Army we can assist them to stop the aggressor in their land, then as a matter of promoting the common good we should provide that assistance. Substantial humanitarian support should also be part of New Zealand’s involvement in Iraq,” says Cardinal John Dew, on behalf of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops.

“At this moment our membership of the United Nations Security Council gives us a unique position in global affairs and could be used to advocate strongly in the UN forum for further sanctions and other actions which will stop the flow of arms to ISIS, and prevent it making money from Iraqi assets it has captured,” Cardinal Dew said.

“We urge Christians to pray unceasingly for the people of the Middle East and we pray for global leaders in their efforts to stop those who inflict this brutality on others.” Cardinal Dew said.

The Catholic principle of solidarity demands that people around the world rally behind those being persecuted, threatened and endangered by Islamic State, and obviously those who are being injured and killed. For Catholics, that means storming heaven to seek some sort of progress in attempts to bring down Islamic State. For a broader group, it’s offering whatever support, including financial, we can to those living in unimaginable circumstances. For those with expertise in military operations or strategic endeavours, that may mean entering harm’s way with the aim of easing suffering in the region.

When you’re in little old New Zealand, and a raised terror threat means (as happened recently) going from very low to low, it’s easy to say “That’s not my problem”. It’s easy to mount a case against sending some of our best and brightest to a volatile and dangerous area. It’s easy to point to other countries’ failures in trying to make a difference — both in this current conflict, or over the past 12 years or over the past hundreds of years — and wonder what our experts could realistically achieve.

As far as I’m concerned, it takes courage to make this call, which has proven to be favoured slightly by New Zealanders according to a poll, but has been opposed by all the politician opposition parties and most of the media. And despite that unpopularity in influential circles, the bishops still got behind the Prime Minister, behind the Pope and behind the people of goodwill in the Middle East.

Our bishops would hate war and conflict as much as anyone else, if not more, but they realise that “we can no longer watch from the sidelines”.

I’ve never been prouder of the New Zealand bishops. Kia kaha.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/we-can-no-longer-watch-from-the-sidelines/feed/0Unsolicited, tardy advice for Cardinal Dewhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/unsolicited-tardy-advice-for-cardinal-dew/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/unsolicited-tardy-advice-for-cardinal-dew/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 11:02:51 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1986Continue reading →]]>In just a few days, Archbishop John Dew of Wellington will become Cardinal John Dew of some ancient diocese or other. For our purposes, we’ll ignore the protocol of titles like Cardinal-Designate; it’s just a bit too cumbersome.

If you didn’t, the long and short of my analysis is that one of two things has happened: Pope Francis thought it was about time New Zealand had a cardinal of voting age, since Cardinal Tom Williams has been over the age of 80 for five years or Pope Francis saw a moderate-progressive Churchman on the other side of the world who had views that aligned with his own and tapped him on the shoulder. I obviously don’t know which is true — in fact, both may well be true — but I am firmly in the camp that sees this as a positive for the Church in New Zealand and indeed in the Pacific, with the first Tongan cardinal also on the list of new Princes of the Church.

In my earlier blog post and on the podcast, I expressed my thoughts on Cardinal Dew, someone I found very personable in my encounters with him, but someone with whom I’ve had professional and theological disagreements over the past 10 years. Inter alia, I struggle to see how his hopes for allowing divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion can be achieved without major concessions from the Church on the sanctity of marriage. I am convinced that Cardinal Dew is a man who has a deep commitment to a more inclusive and welcoming Church, but that can sometimes appear too inclusive and welcoming in light of the Church’s teaching on a range of issues.

One topic on which he spoke loudly and clearly was in leading the New Zealand bishops’ case against same-sex marriage in 2012. As it turned out, I saw Cardinal Dew soon after his public statement and congratulated him for his stance. I made that gesture with the same sincerity I had when at NZ Catholic writing stories critical of things that were happening in the archdiocese under his watch. Few people make the right decision all the time and few make the wrong decision all the time. I try to call a spade a spade, and offer bouquets when appropriate and brickbats when appropriate.

That’s a long introductory statement leading into my sharing of a radio interview you may not have heard with his Imminent Eminence. Cardinal Dew sat down with Mark Sainsbury, one of New Zealand’s best-known broadcasters, for a segment for “Soundtrack to your life”, which is a combination of a traditional radio interview and a DJ session for the guest. In a 40-minute interview, Sainsbury delved in Cardinal Dew’s background, the state of the Church today and its future, celibacy and sex abuse, among other topics. And Cardinal Dew selected four songs that he loves to share with the audience and offer a little insight into him.

Now, Cardinal Dew has his own media helpers, so he didn’t and doesn’t need any additional advice from me. But after listening to the interview, which was a chance for Cardinal Dew to engage with an audience he’d rarely otherwise encounter, I had a few thoughts on how he could do things differently. So, here is some unsolicited and tardy advice from me to the Cardinal — or a Churchman who finds himself in Mark Sainsbury’s hot seat.

PICK GOOD SONGS: Most people have never met a priest, even fewer a bishop and the number of people who’ve met a cardinal is a small group. The image or caricature someone would have of a cardinal, bishop or priest would obviously range widely, but there are many who would see a man of the cloth as aloof, highfalutin and removed from the reality of “everyday life”. I would say that is true for some priests and many bishops and cardinals. It’s not a characterisation I would offer for Cardinal Dew. He seems most comfortable in informal settings with “regular” people, so has that human touch some bishops might lack or be accused of lacking. He was able to let his humanity shine through in some of the stories he shared, not least about his parents (and possibly him) wanted young John to become an All Black, but also in his candid recollections about trying to avoid the seminary, but eventually being drawn to the priesthood.

Now, it might seem trivial, but I think the cardinal’s choice of songs undid some of that work. All four songs were classical in style and three of the four were religious songs. I say this as someone for whom “O Holy Night” is my favourite Christmas hymn and who loves the movie The Shawshank Redemption, from which another piece of music comes. But if I was helping Cardinal Dew prep for the interview, I’d have given him a steer towards a classic Kiwi song — and singer — like Welcome Home by Dave Dobbyn. (The Cardinal may hate that particular song, but it’s got a great message of welcome and inclusion and it’s a song with real working-class feel. But I hope you get my point — a man of the cloth shouldn’t be seen to just love Churchy/classical music.)

AVOID PERPETUATING MEDIA STEREOTYPES: It can be easy to just agree with what an interviewer is saying (or asking), but it’s often not prudent to do so. Sainsbury suggests that Pope Francis is “single-handedly transforming the Church”. That’s certainly been a narrative that many have been trying to run, but it is increasingly obvious that it’s simply not true. I think you could argue that he is changing the image of the papacy, which was inevitable when a pastor replaced a theologian as pope, but what “transforming” of the Church has he done? This was a chance to make that important distinction; it was a chance missed.

There was also an opportunity to counter the “Pope Francis vs Pope Benedict” dichotomy that has been set up by many people, when Sainsbury tried to say that Pope Francis has come in and is trying to (finally) clean up the Church when it comes to sexual abuse by clergy. The reality is that Benedict made huge strides in this area and had hundreds of priests defrocked, but it doesn’t fit the narrative of “Francis good, Benedict bad”.

There is also a quick moment in which the infallibility of the Pope is mentioned in the usual media context, i.e. a nonsensical understanding of what infallibility actually is, and there was a missed opportunity to clarify what infallibility is — in a quick, simple and possibly humorous way.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OPENINGS:While Sainsbury was not a hostile interviewer, many secular journalists will be hostile when interviewing a member of the clergy. When there are chances to make a strong case for the Church, it should be taken. That opportunity was probably when Cardinal Dew was asked (paraphrasing here) “Has the Church really changed in the last 45 years?” There are so many wonderful things that the Church has been able to achieve in that time, but the discussion was pigeonholed into one about changes to worship, rather than the great social influence the Church has had and continues to have, not least through the Catholic education system (cough, cough). Thankfully there was a second bite of the cherry when the “relevance” of the Church was discussed, but that won’t always be the case.

That’s not to say that there weren’t very important and Church-affirming aspects of the interview. One of the strengths of the interview was Cardinal Dew’s obvious sense of shame and disappointment in the Church in the area of clerical sex abuse. As one of the bishops who has lived through the period of apologies and responses and investigations, he understands just how damaging the issue has been. Your everyday listener won’t have heard that remorse before; it’s important that they hear it from the Church’s most prominent figure in New Zealand.

Cardinal Dew also gave a very clear response to the question of a celibate priesthood as it relates to his ministry. He states that he couldn’t possibly have given himself fully to his priestly service as well as a wife and family and affirms the commitment of his celibate brother priests. He speaks about the importance of love in one’s life, even if that’s not physical love in a marital sense.

He also demonstrates his humility in many instances, which is a virtue many — rightly or wrongly — won’t readily associate with priests or bishops.

And he manages to go out on a high note, taking the brief chance to explain what the Church and the Christian faith is all about — God becoming a part of our lives on a “Holy Night”.

So, overall, I’d give the Cardinal a B grade for his interview. A positive face of the Church was put forward, but I’ve offered some thoughts on how he could improve on his next venture of many into the media spotlight.

Let’s pray for Cardinal Dew especially over the next few days as he arrives in Rome for a series of meetings before he actually gets his red hat. As the only active bishop in Australasia who’s a member of the College of Cardinals, he’s got a lot of responsibilities. I wish him well.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/unsolicited-tardy-advice-for-cardinal-dew/feed/0New Zealand’s cardinal total doubledhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/new-zealands-cardinal-total-doubled/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/new-zealands-cardinal-total-doubled/#commentsWed, 14 Jan 2015 11:40:00 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1982Continue reading →]]>It’s only the middle of January and it’s already been a big year for the Catholic Church in New Zealand. In fact, it’s possibly the biggest year for the Church since 1986 — when Pope John Paul II visited the country.

On January 1 (it was actually announced the day before), Br Patrick Lynch, the head of the New Zealand Catholic Education Office, was made a knight, becoming Sir Br Patrick Lynch for his 21 years as head of the organisation, and no doubt also for his work in education before his current role.

Brother Lynch said he never contemplated getting an honour in his wildest imagination.

But he said it carried a good message. “Education really is the springboard for people’s happiness, fulfilment and success in life. A lot of people just don’t quite get that yet,” he said.

“While there are a lot of ills in society, education has got to be the silver bullet. When we’ve got inspiring people in front of kids within a generation, we’ll really be at the top of the world when it comes to education.”

The news just got bigger a few days later when Archbishop John Dew of Wellington was tapped on the shoulder as part of the new batch of cardinals that Pope Francis announced would be welcomed into the College of Cardinals on February 14.

Cardinal-Designate Dew will be New Zealand’s first new cardinal since Cardinal Tom Williams, his predecessor as Archbishop of Wellington, got the nod in 1983. In 2005, Cardinal Williams left his episcopal post, but remained a voting cardinal until he turned 80 in 2010.

There was conjecture that Archbishop Dew would become a cardinal in 2010, in order to allow New Zealand to retain its seat around the voters’ table in the event of a conclave, but that date came and went. That school of thought was based on the premise that Wellington had become an archdiocese that all but guaranteed a red hat.

That remains one of two schools of thought on why Archbishop Dew got the nod last week.

The other school of thought suggests that Archbishop Dew has a lot more in common with Pope Francis than he did with Pope Benedict XVI, and that’s why the call-up didn’t come sooner. It suggests Pope Benedict didn’t see Archbishop Dew as orthodox enough.

Around the English-speaking world, in discussions about the new cardinals, much of the coverage of Archbishop Dew has focused on his consistent efforts to raise concerns about the situation of divorced and remarried Catholics — something he spoke about at a synod in 2005 and again at the first instalment of the Synod on the Family a couple of months ago.

A practical, down-to-earth pastor formed in the mindset of the Second Vatican Council, he has vast parish experience and an education earned in New Zealand and England. John Paul II made him auxiliary bishop of Wellington in 1995 and then its coadjutor archbishop nine years later. He took up the reins in 2005 when Cardinal Thomas Stafford Williams, now 84, retired. He is president of his country’s episcopal conference and will be seen as a moderate-to-progressive voice in the College of Cardinals.

So, has Pope Francis promoted a “moderate-to-progressive” as a reward for his advocacy on an issue that has become a serious touchstone in the first world in recent years? Or has he just re-established the New Zealand equilibrium in having a cardinal of voting age?

Does it really matter? It’s not a question we’ll actually get an answer to, and the importance of it to the Church in New Zealand is unaffected either way.

Some New Zealanders are discouraged by Archbishop Dew’s elevation because they feel he hasn’t sufficiently upheld the Church’s teaching on certain issues. I don’t fall into that category.

I’ve had personal and professional disagreements with Archbishop Dew over the years and I struggle to see how his ideas on allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion can be implemented without drastically changing the Church’s understanding of marriage. But having said that, I hope Archbishop Dew can provide a strong voice on behalf of the Church in the Pacific in tandem with the first ever cardinal from Tonga — Bishop Sione Mafi.

In fact, with Cardinal Pell now based in Rome, Cardinal-Designate Dew becomes the only cardinal under 80 in Australia or New Zealand. We’re back leading the way

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/new-zealands-cardinal-total-doubled/feed/1BishFish becomes ArchBishFishhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/bishfish-becomes-archbishfish/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/bishfish-becomes-archbishfish/#commentsSat, 15 Nov 2014 19:38:19 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1977Continue reading →]]>For many months — and especially in recent weeks — I’ve been thinking that it’s about time to get back on The Catholic Soapbox and resume my pontificating about pontificates. As it turns out, my return has been prompted by an episcopate, and that of Sydney in particular.

You see, last Wednesday was the installation of now-Archbishop Anthony Fisher as the ninth archbishop of Sydney. I was recently made aware that His Grace has been affectionately known to many as BishFish; he’s now ArchbishFish. I’d heard other nicknames used, but they weren’t as friendly.

So what do I make of Archbishop Fisher heading the best-known archdiocese in Australia? As I’ve told anyone who’s been interested, since a couple of days after Sydney’s Cardinal George Pell was announced as Pope Francis’s pick to head up the new Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican about nine months ago, Anthony Fisher was the only logical choice to succeed him.

I spent the first 48 hours after Cardinal Pell’s appointment bouncing between Archbishop Fisher and Brisbane’s Archbishop Mark Coleridge as the favourite, but the more I thought about it, the more Archbishop Fisher made sense. One reason was because he’s long been seen as Cardinal Pell’s protege. At least as importantly, the fact Pope Francis had shown so much faith in Cardinal Pell to clean up the Vatican’s finances, he was pretty likely to ask the cardinal for his views on the best replacement for the job, and the recommendation would almost certainly be then-Bishop Fisher.

Whether for religious-political reasons or otherwise, Archbishop Fisher has chosen to highlight how he and Cardinal Pell are different as others have tried to portray this as an episcopacy of continuity. I don’t think there’s much doubt that Archbishop Fisher and Cardinal Pell fall broadly into the same theological camp, but I think they might fall into different political and public persona tents.

Archbishop Fisher has pointed to their ages (he’s almost 20 years younger) as a key difference between he and his predecessor. He’s also joked about their size difference, with Cardinal Pell standing well over six feet tall — I think about 6’5 — and being a larger than life character in a number of ways. Archbishop Fisher is also a local boy, having grown up in and around Sydney and most recently having been Bishop of Parramatta, which takes in western parts of the Sydney metropolitan area and extends into less densely populated areas. His local roots were another reason he was always the frontrunner for the Sydney gig.

One of the criticisms of Cardinal Pell — and it isn’t hard to find people ready to criticise him — has been his lack of warmth when engaging with his flock. I’ve had a couple of occasions in which to interact with the Cardinal in social settings and interviewed him several years ago, and I found him to warm and amiable in those contexts. I’ve had fewer opportunities to see him in larger gatherings, but there seems to be a consensus that he doesn’t shine, and probably doesn’t feel as comfortable, in such settings.

Archbishop Fisher during his installation Mass was able to show a side of himself that many didn’t know he had. After he was installed — which is a fairly perfunctory ritual, as I found out — he was led to his cathedra, where he sat and received maybe 30-40 people from the archdiocese who had been chosen to congratulate and welcome him. His personal warmth and affection for the people he hugged, kissed, whose hands he shook, many of whom he likely had never met before, was evident for all to see, and will have left a seriously positive impression on many.

I’ve already had a couple of people say that it has changed their opinion of Archbishop Fisher. You see, many had ascribed all of Cardinal Pell’s traits to Archbishop Fisher, and doubted he was the personable, engaging person that he is. He is deeply loved by the young people of Parramatta and Sydney, thanks largely to his involvement as the lead bishop in charge of World Youth Day Sydney in 2008, but he’s continued to foster his relationship with young people in the years since.

(At this point I want to say a massive congratulations to the people at Sydney Catholic Communications and XT3.com — a Catholic social network and content-sharing platform — for the livestream/webcast of the installation Mass, which you can access by clicking here. My comments above about Archbishop Fisher’s warmth and kindness are based on watching the footage via a screen in the cathedral crypt — the cathedral itself was full of people more important than I. Few archdioceses in the world have the resources to pull it off, but Sydney broadcast the event to the city, the nation and the world, and it was a great PR exercise for Archbishop Fisher, even if that’s not what the explicit intent was.)

Many challenges face Archbishop Fisher, not least the ongoing Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of children in institutions in Australia, of which the Church is obviously a major focus. During World Youth Day, Archbishop Fisher made a fairly serious misstep when responding to a journalist asking about the ongoing pain a family was suffering as a result of clerical sexual abuse. (Some argue the comments were directed at journalists, not the family.)

I expected it to receive more attention than it did in the weeks between the announcement of Archbishop Fisher’s appointment and his installation, but the mentions in the media were few and far between. He has spoken clearly and unequivocally in that period about his commitment to victims and to cleaning up the Church in this shameful area and I trust that the six years since World Youth Day have helped him better understand the situation — and the imprudence of his comments in 2008. Being a diocesan bishop, as opposed to an auxiliary in 2008, certainly would’ve sharpened his focus.

There’s also the challenge of interfaith relations in a country where a small number of men (and even fewer women) seem to have embraced the cause of ISIS/IS/Islamic State. There is growing fear of some sort of domestic terrorism. Indeed, several weeks ago police announced they had foiled a plot to behead a random person in a prominent Sydney location. Archbishop Fisher has spoken on several occasions about Islam and often alongside Muslim leaders, and his homily at the installation Mass began with a reflection on Christianity, Islam and secularism. In a city as diverse as Sydney is, engagement with religious and civic leaders will be a big part of the Archbishop’s public role.

Declining Mass attendance and general religious adherence was another focus of Archbishop Fisher’s homily, in which he called on those who had left the Church — for any number of reasons — to “give us another chance” and to help the Church become a better institution. And to young people, in particular, he invited them to “Open your hearts to the great adventure of the Gospel”.

I’ve been fortunate to have some professional and one brief instance of social interaction with Archbishop Fisher and I firmly believe he was the logical — but also the right choice — to become Archbishop of Sydney. I have a great deal of respect for his intellectual rigour, I trust him as a guardian of the Church’s teaching and I see him as someone with the pastoral understanding to become an archbishop that the people of Sydney embrace. Cardinal Pell, unfairly in my estimation, although his public comments sometimes defied explanation, was never able to enjoy that embrace. I hope and pray Archbishop Fisher will earn and enjoy it over the next 21 years*.

* At 54, Archbishop Fisher is 21 years away from the retirement age for bishops, and there isn’t a promotion for him to get in Australia. Many expect, however, that his episcopacy will, at some point, be cut short and he’ll be summoned to Rome for a Vatican appointment. We shall see.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/bishfish-becomes-archbishfish/feed/4Memo to CNN: The Pope’s Catholichttp://catholicsoapbox.com/memo-to-cnn-the-popes-catholic/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/memo-to-cnn-the-popes-catholic/#commentsTue, 03 Dec 2013 10:39:24 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1973Continue reading →]]>I’m not sure if anyone missed me, but I’m back on deck after a period of manic busyness and with some advice for CNN anchor and former foreign correspondent supreme Christiane Amanpour, who now has her own show on the network. And, like so many mainstream journalists, she’s been fascinated by the first (almost) nine months of Pope Francis’s pontificate.

A few days ago, she was examining a very important and troubling development in Belgium, where politicians are debating whether or not they should allow teenagers and younger children to be covered by euthanasia legislation that is otherwise only applicable to adult Belgians and has been for many years.

Christiane interviewed a Belgian politician to get his view on the issue, and then turned to Professor Robert George — a friend of a friend on Facebook. He’s one of the leading conservative thinkers in the US, and a Catholic, and he gave a clear and concise view on the reasons why euthanasia is a bad thing for adults, not to mention children.

Before long, though, Christiane wanted to probe Robert on a few other issues, including Evangelii Gaudium, the pope’s apostolic exhortation that grabbed headlines in the last couple of weeks, not least because of its harsh critique of uncontrolled capitalism.

And she wondered if people were becoming increasingly disappointed that the Pope wasn’t changing things a bit more. After all, wasn’t that what everyone wanted him to do, she suggested.

Robert was not backward in coming forward in putting Christiane in her place — albeit without pointing out the foolishness of her line of questioning.

Enjoy seeing a man of great faith and great intellect giving a clear explanation of Pope Francis’s views, including what the role of women in the Church might be.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/memo-to-cnn-the-popes-catholic/feed/0Catholic comedy clubhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/catholic-comedy-club/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/catholic-comedy-club/#commentsMon, 21 Oct 2013 09:36:02 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1970Continue reading →]]>The Alfred E. Smith Dinner is one of the biggest Catholic fundraising events held around the world and probably also one of the most controversial. Hosted by the Archbishop of New York and held since 1945, the dinner honours the governor of New York in the early 20th century who would go on to become the first Catholic presidential candidate. The memorial dinner brings together luminaries from the Church, politics, business and all walks of life and this year raised $3 million to help Catholic causes.

It’s been controversial in the past because of some of the invited speakers. Given the Church’s view on abortion, the presence of a pro-choice politician is usually greeted with much criticism — and I’m not arguing with that response. Last year, leading up to the presidential election, and in previous election years, the Republican and Democratic candidates have attended the dinner and been given the chance to poke a bit of fun at their opponent, but also themselves. Taking place in mid-October, it’s two to three weeks before the election, and offers some light relief in what would have been a torrid campaign.

This year, though, the dinner featured an actual comedian as the keynote speaker, rather than someone from another walk of life pretending to be a comedian. That speaker was the man who is the self-proclaimed most famous Catholic in America: Stephen Colbert. And it’s quite possible that he’s right in that assessment. He joked in his remarks that pride (in his fame) is a sin; speaking to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, likely his main competition for that distinction, Colbert said envy was also a sin.

Some are more Catholic than others, and being a Catholic blog, I’ll naturally share those:

Since [Al Smith] first shattered the stained glass ceiling, America has seen a flood of Catholic presidents, from John F. Kennedy, to JFK to good old Jack Kennedy.”

“We got close-ish in 2004 with John Kerry, who was a deeply Catholic candidate. In that listening to him talk was like attending a Latin mass.”

“Your Eminence. That’s a fantastic title. He’s not just sitting there, he’s emanating. He’s like a fog of cardinal-ness. On the other hand, The Eminence sounds like the most boring Spider-Man villain of all time.”

“I have great respect for Cardinal Dolan. Although I have to say, sir, it’s not easy while you’re wearing that outfit. In that cape and red sash, you look like a matador who’s really let himself go. Did you not see the invite? It said white tie, not Flamboyant Zorro.”

“I got totally pious-faced. I did every station of the cross. I can’t remember how many sacraments I did. For all I know I’m celibate now. … At one point I genuflected all over the back of a cab.”

Sometimes we can be a bit too serious about our faith, so it’s nice to have a laugh every once in a while. As Cardinal Dolan said after Stephen Colbert spoke, it’s important to be able to “Leave laughing” — a lesson his father taught him. People were certainly doing that after the Al Smith Dinner.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/catholic-comedy-club/feed/0Vocations “surge” in the UKhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/vocations-surge-in-the-uk/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/vocations-surge-in-the-uk/#commentsSat, 19 Oct 2013 11:58:45 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1968Continue reading →]]>When it comes to religious vocations, it’s reasonable to wonder if we will ever see a return to the huge numbers of men and women joining religious orders during previous centuries, including in the middle of the last century — the most recent example of a surge in vocations. In the West, at least, there has been a constant decline in religious vocations for several decades, particularly in the past 30 years or so.

Of all places, though, the UK has seen a dramatic reversal of that trend over the past decade or so. Statistics looking at the number of men and women entering religious life — therefore not including men entering diocesan seminaries — over the past 30 years saw a drop from more than 200 vocations in 1982 and 1983 and a trough in 2004, when just 19 men and women in the UK entered religious life. In 2005, though, we saw the turning of the tide, with more than 30 vocations, and the trend has been upwards since, highlighted by a total of 64 vocations in 2012.

Vocations officials say they owe a lot to Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain in 2010. Sister Cathy Jones, religious life promoter of the National Office for Vocation, says it strengthened people’s faith and pride at being Catholic. “People who had been discerning a good number of years thought, ‘I’ll give this a go’,” she says.

2.A culture of vocation

Fr Christopher Jamison, director of the National Office for Vocation, says that, in the early 2000s, “lots of different people woke up to the same idea” – that is, that everyone had a vocation, whether that’s to be a priest, a religious, a single or married person. “Vocation” simply means to live out the baptismal call to holiness. A “culture of vocation” is what Catholic culture ideally should be.

This is the idea that vocations ministry is built on. And it leads directly to numbers three and four…

3.Discernment groups

Discernment groups have sprung up all over the country. These help people decide what their particular path to holiness will be. They come in various forms, from the national Invocation festival to the Compass programme, run by religious orders, to local Samuel groups. Many religious orders also run their own “come and see” weekends, where interested people can get a taste of religious life.

Fr Stephen Langridge, vocations director at Southwark, says: “It’s not about trying to recruit people – it’s about making people better disciples.”

The Church used to act like a recruitment agency, with adverts on posters and beer mats. That seems to be a thing of the past.

4.Vocations directors

Vocations ministry has expanded enormously in recent years. Fr Langridge says that when he was thinking about becoming a priest years ago he saw his vocations director just once. Now, he says, “I wouldn’t let someone apply if I haven’t spent 100 hours with them”.

Fr Jamison says religious orders used to have the idea that they should only pray for vocations. “If you did more than that it showed a lack of faith in God,” he says. Now, he explains, a “significant number” of religious orders have full-time vocations directors. That means they can engage much more with people who are interested in religious life.

It’s not all that easy to arrange for a Pope to visit your country, so we can’t just wave a magic wand and enjoy the benefits that come from that. The other three reasons cited, though, are ideas that can be adopted throughout the world or, where they’ve already been put in place, adapted in a way that might be more beneficial than they currently have proven in some countries.

The future of the Church depends on vocations to religious life and the priesthood, so it’s something that certainly should be given serious resources and emphasis.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/vocations-surge-in-the-uk/feed/0The Cardinal, the Archbishop and the supermarkethttp://catholicsoapbox.com/the-cardinal-the-archbishop-and-the-supermarket/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/the-cardinal-the-archbishop-and-the-supermarket/#commentsFri, 18 Oct 2013 11:25:51 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1965Continue reading →]]>The headline sounds like the start of some sort of joke, but those three elements combined to create a story that we can file away in the “all’s well that ends well” category.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras was considered one of the possible successors to Pope John Paul II back in 2005, but as we now know, Pope Benedict XVI — Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — had that distinction. He’s still considered an influential member of the College of Cardinal and was tapped on the shoulder by Pope Francis to be one of the members of the group of eight cardinals charged with assisting the Holy Father in bringing about necessary reforms.

The cardinal recently attended the first meetings of that group and then went on a trip to New Zealand. It was following the final leg of his journey, arriving in the town known as Windy Wellington, that things went a little haywire, as this Catholic News Service story (via Catholic Sentinel) explains:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A miscommunication between the Vatican and New Zealand church officials resulted in an adventurous arrival for the prelate who coordinates a key commission of cardinals that advises Pope Francis.

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga arrived in Wellington Oct. 9. But New Zealand Catholic Church officials were expecting him to arrive the next day, after being given the wrong information by Vatican authorities.

Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga, who on Oct. 3 finished a meeting with Pope Francis and the so-called Group of Eight commission of cardinals, endured the not unusual “bumpy” arrival into Wellington because of high winds, but there was no one to meet him at Wellington airport.

So the polyglot cardinal caught a taxi and asked the driver to take him to the Catholic cathedral.

The taxi driver went to a Baptist church, and Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga had to advise him to use his GPS device to find the Catholic destination.

When he finally arrived, the cardinal was let into Viard House near Sacred Heart Cathedral by the parish priest, Father James Lyons.

Archbishop John Dew was shopping at the supermarket at the time, and when he returned with his shopping bags, he found one of the most influential cardinals in the Catholic Church waiting in his kitchen.

Just another day in the life of a globetrotting Honduran cardinal. I’m very glad it was the Vatican’s mistake. We don’t need the Church in New Zealand getting the reputation of bumbling hosts.

]]>http://catholicsoapbox.com/the-cardinal-the-archbishop-and-the-supermarket/feed/0Worst typo in history?http://catholicsoapbox.com/worst-typo-in-history/
http://catholicsoapbox.com/worst-typo-in-history/#commentsTue, 15 Oct 2013 10:27:44 +0000gavinhttp://catholicsoapbox.com/?p=1963Continue reading →]]>As someone who writes a lot, I make more than my share of grammatical and typographical errors, although hopefully I catch most of them in the editing process. As someone who also reads a lot, I’m constantly confronted with errors that journalists have made and subeditors have failed to correct.

Bring me the list of the worst publication mistakes, though, and the errors on that list surely would have stiff competition in an absolute clanger from the Vatican themselves. What word do you think the Vatican couldn’t possibly get wrong? That’s right. That’s the one they got wrong.

The Vatican has pulled back thousands of medals commemorating Pope Francis’ ascension to the papacy because the name of Jesus is misspelled.

The medals, which have often been minted for a new pope and are bought by collectors worldwide, named the Christian savior as “Lesus” in an inscription on the edge.

The medals were struck in gold, silver and bronze by the Italian state mint before the mistake was noticed, according to the BBC. They went on sale Tuesday.

[...]

The medals depict Pope Francis and a phrase in Latin that inspired him to become a priest: “Jesus therefore sees the tax collector, and since he sees by having mercy and by choosing, he says to him, ‘follow me’.” The “J” is that phrase appears as an “L” on the medal.

Naturally there was a barrage of discussion on social media about the embarrassing mistake, but some people maintained a sense of humour. Referring to the order to which Pope Francis belongs, which has a mixed reputation in different parts of the world, one tweeter said: “I blame the Lesuits.”